Journey Across the Four Seas (21 page)

This time Sam-Koo sided with Mother, and together the two painted a picture of life after childbirth. It’s like a sickness from which the woman has to recover. She has to stay in bed for thirty days after the delivery, and hence the phrase "sitting through the month." Her duty is to rest and feast on revitalizing foods such as pig’s feet stewed in ginger and vinegar, and chicken cooked in rice wine. She should also be served, preferably in bed, an extra meal at five in the morning. All this cooking, plus taking care of the baby, would be too much for Sam-Koo alone.

Beset by their eloquent appeal, I said lamely, "The decision isn’t up to me. If Hok-Ching agrees, I don’t really care one way or the other."

"I’ll talk to Hok-Ching," Mother said. "He looks like a good boy; he’ll listen to me."

I’d never thought of my husband as a boy, but that was what he was to Mother. Already I could see that she’d taken a shine to him, solely because he was a boy.

At dinner that evening Mother said to me in front of everyone, "In a few days you’ll be gone. You’ll be all by yourself when you have your baby, and I’ll be too far away to help. You’re my only daughter, and this is my first grandchild. My heart hurts to think of you leaving. Can’t you stay until the baby is born?"

Her eyes were wet. My brothers looked concerned.

"My home is your home," Brother Kin said to me. "You can stay as long as you want.
Bangkok
has a first-rate hospital that admits only Europeans. My American boss plays tennis with the hospital director. I’m sure he can get you in."

All eyes were on Hok-Ching, and Hok-Ching’s eyes were on me. He was sitting next to me, his square shoulders almost touching mine.

"I’ve been thinking about the return trip to
Canton
," I said, keeping my gaze on the table. "The voyage out was rough. Who knows what the weather will be going home? In my condition, should I take the risk?" After eight months of living with my worrywart husband, I’d found the shortcut to his heart.

His teeth clenched with a click. I glanced sideways at his long lower jaw, which seemed to have grown longer since we got married.

After a pensive silence, he said, "It’s up to Flora. If she wants to stay, I don’t mind going back first."

*

Two of the happiest months of my life flew by. Although I stayed home with Mother most of the time, I didn’t feel bored at all. My cousins called on me, offering to take me here and there. Sometimes I went with them, but mostly I was content to stay put. I had all the company I needed within myself. A human being was growing inside me, and I felt as whole as the universe. All the mysteries of the world were contained in my belly and there was nothing more I needed.

My labor started in the early afternoon. Brother Kin came home from work to personally drive me to the hospital—the exclusive French hospital that he’d promised to arrange for me. Mother saw me to the door and bid me to "watch my step," as she always did when I went shopping or sightseeing. She gave no indication that this trip was anything out of the ordinary.

To get to the hospital as fast as possible, Brother Kin cut through a street where the Chinese embassy was located. He cursed himself the moment he turned in. He’d forgotten that the next day was the birthday of Chiang Kai-Shek. Regarded as the vanquisher of the Japanese, the Generalissimo was worshiped as a hero throughout
Asia
. People went wild with celebrations. Already on the day before his birthday the street was chock full of cars bringing guests to the embassy. Stuck between vehicles on every side, Brother Kin couldn’t even double back and try a different route. My contractions were becoming more frequent, but I clenched my jaws and kept very quiet. I didn’t want to alarm my brother.

After an hour or so, we crawled out of the congestion. Brother Kin sped to the hospital. "Give me a call when you’re done," he said before leaving. "I’ll come and pick you up." He had no idea about these things and neither did I.

I handed the receptionist the letter from the hospital director. Brother Kin had been made to understand that this violation of policy was exceptional. The hospital had only two single rooms in the maternity ward. If two Europeans happened to be giving birth that night, he was warned, his sister would be out in the corridor.

The receptionist rang for a nurse, who took me upstairs. I passed a room where I caught a glimpse of a woman tossing in bed. She was yelling in French, and her vocabulary wasn’t the kind Mother Angelica had taught me. Its meaning, however, wasn’t difficult to guess. The nurse took me to the next room, which, luckily for me, was empty.

I changed into a gown and lay down in bed. The churning in my belly was getting uncomfortable, but I was too distracted to pay much attention to it. The woman on the other side of the wall was squealing like a pig in a slaughterhouse. I’d never heard a grown-up make such unbecoming noise, and I felt rather embarrassed on her behalf. She was just having a baby—why did she have to scream like that?

A warm flow gushed between my legs. Oh no, I thought, I’d peed on myself. I rang the bell in alarm. Minutes passed and nobody came. I rang the bell a second time. Again, there was no response. My imagination conjured up disasters. What if the baby were bleeding? I pressed the button once more—this time I kept my finger there until a nurse appeared.

"What’s going on?" she squawked. The nurse was Thai and she’d been giving me sour looks the moment my yellow face appeared in the ward. She was used to waiting on white-skinned women.

As I didn’t know much Thai yet, I spoke to her in English. "I’m sorry I got the bed all wet. I don’t know what happened. It came so fast."

"Is that all?" she spat out. "I thought somebody was dying. That’s just your bag of water."

Whatever that was, it sounded serious. I immediately asked to see Dr. Chat—the obstetrician Brother Kin had found for me and reputed to be the best in the kingdom. My brother had figured that a doctor worthy of delivering babies for the royal family was worthy of tending to his sister.

The lemon-faced nurse threw me a look of contempt. "Dr. Chat is very busy. He’ll come when you’re ready."

"When am I going to be ready?" I asked, but the nurse had disappeared before I could finish my sentence.

Nobody had told me anything about a bag of water. Actually, nobody had told me anything about childbirth, and it had never occurred to me to ask. Mother had her babies at home, in the company of an aunt or two and a midwife to catch the baby. Whenever she talked about it, it always sounded as if it were a party. How I wished she or Sam-Koo could be with me now. But this was a high-class, exclusive hospital where no visitors were allowed.

As long as the French woman kept up her raving, my pain seemed tolerable. But after she was wheeled away and I was left alone in the ward, the wrenching in my guts got sharper and sharper, and I was beginning to understand what my neighbor had been going through. Even so, there was no need to wake up the whole hospital. No matter how great the pain was, I was determined to suffer in honorable silence. Just as the resolution formed in my mind, a growl ripped the room. The noise startled me—who could have made this ugly sound? Then a howl pierced my eardrums from the inside. I was the one making the beastly shrieks! My eyes darted anxiously at the door. Now the nurse was going to come in and insult me again. But what did I care? I was going to die anyway. Tears gushed out the corners of my eyes—not so much out of pain, as grief for my short unfulfilled life, which I was sure was expiring within minutes.

Looking back, I’m still mad that nobody had informed me beforehand. Had I known that labor pain couldn’t kill, I would have borne it better. But with not a soul to reassure me, my first childbirth turned out to be a most frightful experience. The worst part was that it was unnecessarily so.

Agnes crawled out at
7 am
,
October 31, 1946
. As I held her in my arms, the horrors of the night vanished. I stared at my daughter with amazement. This lump that used to be part of my flesh was a little person with eyes that rolled with alertness and a mouth that was already making her demands known. Stroking her soft, fuzzy head, I swore to her that I would fulfill her every need. She would never suffer the hardships that I’d suffered in my childhood. My father wasn’t around to provide for me, and my mother, with all her good intentions, was too ignorant to know how to raise me. I would be an educated, well-informed mother, and I would guide my child every step of the way. She would grow up to be the best she could be.

I sniffed her baby perfume and whispered "Agnes" in her ear. This would be her baptismal name. A girl called Agnes had been a classmate at Italian Convent, and I’d always thought it was a pretty name. I also tried out my baby’s Chinese name—Man-Kuk, which was Cantonese for
Bangkok
. Baba was the person who christened all his grandchildren, and he’d devised a system of creating names based on birthplaces. His method was indeed visionary. He could already foresee that the next generation of Wangs would be born in cities across the world.

3

Halfway through "sitting my month," I got a letter from Hok-Ching. The postage stamp bore an image of King George. I tore it open, anxious to find out what he was doing in
Hong Kong
. His neat handwriting on the airmail stationery read:

My dearest darling,

I am very happy to hear about the birth of our baby and hope you are both well. Your mother, I am sure, is taking good care of you. My heart can rest knowing that you are in good hands.

I have a piece of news for you: I have quit my job at the university as of the end of last month. As you know, the budget allocated to my department is so measly that I can’t do anything with it. There is also a lot of bickering among the department heads, and the principal is a man of mediocre talents who is easily swayed left and right. I have decided not to waste any more time there.

I have come to
Hong Kong
to check out the prospects for getting a job. I am staying with Yolanda’s parents, who have been very kind to put me up. Please do not worry about me. Take your time to rest and recuperate. I want you and the baby to be strong before you undertake the trip to join me. You may continue to send letters to my apartment in
Canton
. I have kept it for the time being and will go back once in a while.

                                                                
Your loving husband,

                                                                
Hok-Ching

What! How could he have quit his job without consulting me? His last letter had given me no inkling whatsoever. And why on earth was he staying with Yolanda’s parents? He had an uncle and aunt in
Hong Kong
; they could have taken him in. Staying with Yolanda’s parents was the same as staying with Yolanda. Her fiancé was still in the States, and she’d moved back with her parents. I scanned the letter again and again to tease out more clues. Yolanda and Hok-Ching, Hok-Ching and Yolanda: I kept seeing them together. Sam-Koo had warned me about Yolanda. Worldly and calculating were the words Sam-Koo had used to describe my former roommate. To those I must add competitive. To steal my husband would be a victory that she could gloat over the rest of her days.

I scanned the opening and closing of his letter once more and my heart sank further. Usually his letters were full of yearning for me: how he was counting the days to our reunion, how he worried about my well-being, and so on. But now that he had Yolanda to keep him company, his worries and longings had vanished like mist in sunshine. Now he was encouraging me to rest and recuperate for as long as I wanted. How I regretted giving him full control of the gold bullions from Brother Kin. That money bought him the freedom to quit his job and shuttle between
Canton
and
Hong Kong
like a swinging bachelor.

I wanted to fly to him immediately, but knowing that Mother wouldn’t let me leave until my month was over, I asked Brother Kin to book me a plane ticket for early December. To Mother, I explained that I wanted to be with my husband at Christmas time. This excuse preempted her objections, for Christianity was a world where she was absolutely powerless. She only shook her head and gave her usual line: "If I’d known you would convert, I would never have let you study at Italian Convent."

In the meantime, I wrote back to Hok-Ching, telling him about
our
beautiful baby, and how anxious I was to resume
our
life together. I sent my best regards to my friend Yolanda, and asked when her fiancé was coming home.

Agnes was five weeks old when we landed at Kai Tak airport. As only ticketed passengers were allowed to enter the airport terminal, I had to manage the baby and suitcase on my own. Once outside the building, I saw Hok-Ching’s uncle and aunt wave to me behind the chain-link fence. I looked beyond them, but there was no sign of the person I was expecting.

"Where’s Hok-Ching?" was my first question.

They demurred for a second, but Uncle was quick-witted. He told me that Hok-Ching was waiting for me at the Peninsula Hotel, which was the terminal for the airport bus. As no one was allowed into the airport anyway, Hok-Ching decided it was just as well to meet me at the hotel. Uncle’s explanation sounded good, but it had one major flaw. Why was it that an uncle and aunt would go to the trouble of meeting me at the airport and my husband wouldn’t? However, I held my tongue and saved my question for the right person at the right time.